Our project managers are sandbagging their weekly milestones, holding back completed tasks for the next week to ensure their scorecard is always green. How do we stop this artificial smoothing of our operational data?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Sandbagging is a trust issue masked as a data issue. When project managers hold back completed work to pad the following week, they are prioritizing their personal green streak over the health of the business. This happens because your culture is punishing red metrics instead of treating them as opportunities to solve problems.

To fix this, you must first change how you react to red numbers in your Level 10 Meeting™. If a red number results in immediate blame or defensiveness, your team will naturally start gaming the system to protect themselves. Remind them that red simply means we have an issue to solve together using IDS®.

Second, you need to change the metric. If they are tracking completed tasks, switch the metric to cycle time or average days in progress. You can also track the percentage of projects currently on track according to the actual timeline. It is much harder to sandbag a metric that measures velocity or real-time status.

Finally, look at the GWC™ of the people in those seats. A true professional who gets, wants, and has the capacity to do the job wants accurate data because they know that hiding bottlenecks eventually leads to missed client deadlines. Call out the behavior directly. Let the team know that artificial greens are far more dangerous to the business than honest reds.